The last prose which I read was a parallel between me and Lord Strafford.

My mornings, from five to nine, are quite my own. I still give them to ancient literature. I have read Aristophanes twice through since Christmas; and have also read Herodotus, and Thucydides, again. I got into a way last year of reading a Greek play every Sunday. I began on Sunday the 18th of October with the Prometheus, and next Sunday I shall finish with the Cyclops of Euripides. Euripides has made a complete conquest of me. It has been unfortunate for him that we have so many of his pieces. It has, on the other hand, I suspect, been fortunate for Sophocles that so few of his have come down to us. Almost every play of Sophocles, which is now extant, was one of his masterpieces. There is hardly one of them which is not mentioned with high praise by some ancient writer. Yet one of them, the Trachiniæ, is to my thinking, very poor and insipid. Now, if we had nineteen plays of Sophocles, of which twelve or thirteen should be no better than the Trachiniæ-and if, on the other hand, only seven pieces of Euripides had come down to us, and if those seven had been the Medea, the Bacchæ, Iphigenia in Aulis, the Orestes, the Phonissæ, the Hippolytus, and the Alcestis, -I am not sure that the relative position which the two poets now hold in our estimation would not be greatly altered.

I have not done much in Latin. I have been employed in turning over several third-rate and fourth-rate writers. After finishing Cicero, I read through the works of both the Senecas, father and son. There is a great deal in the Controversia both of curious information, and judicious criticism. As to the son, I cannot bear him. His style affects me in something the same way as that of Gibbon. But Lucius Seneca's affectation is even more rank than Gibbon's. His works are made up of mottoes. There is hardly a sentence which might not be quoted; but to read him straightforward is like dining on nothing but anchovy sauce. I have read, as one does read such stuff, Valerius Maximus, Annæus Florus, Lucius Ampelius, and Aurelius Victor. I have also gone through Phædrus. I am now better employed. I am deep in the Annals of Tacitus, and I am at the same time reading Suetonius. You are so rich in domestic comforts that I am inclined to envy I am not, however, without my share. I am as fond of my

you.

little niece as her father. I pass an hour or more every day in nursing her, and teaching her to talk. She has got as far as Ba, Pa, Ma; which as she is not eight months old, we consider as proofs of a genius little inferior to that of Shakespeare or Sir Isaac Newton. The municipal elections have put me in good spirits as to English politics. I was rather inclined to despondency. Ever yours affectionately,

T. B. MACAULAY.

CCCXXVIII.

The Eastern Question' was almost as complicated in the year 1840 as it is to-day. The rebellion of the Sultan's vassals in Egypt had spread into the heart of the Ottoman Empire, and there was every indication that Syria would soon fall an easy prey to France, and Constantinople to Russia.

England, however, boldly adhered to her traditional policy of maintaining the independence of Turkey; and it is interesting to read the opinion of our great Whig historian of the diplomatic negotiations conducted by Lord Palmerston with his usual vigour and fearlessness.

Thomas Babington Macaulay to Macvey Napier.

London: December 8, 1840.

Dear Napier,-I shall work at my article on Leigh Hunt whenever I have a leisure hour, and shall try to make it amusing to lovers of literary gossip. I will not plague you with my arguments about the Eastern Question. My own opinion has long been made up. Unless England meant to permit a virtual partition of the Ottoman Empire between France and Russia, she had no choice but to act as she has acted. Had the treaty of July not been signed, Nicholas would have been really master of Constantinople, and Thiers of Alexandria. The Treaty once made, I never would have consented to flinch from it, whatever had been the danger. I am satisfied that the War party in France is insatiable and unappeasable; that concessions would only have strengthened and emboldened it; and that after stooping to the lowest humiliations, we should soon have had to fight without allies, and at every disadvantage. The policy which has been followed I believe. to be not only a just and honourable, but eminently a pacific policy.

Whether the peace of the world will long be preserved I do not pretend to say; but I firmly hold that the best chance of pre

serving it was to make the Treaty of July, and, having made it, to execute it resolutely. For my own part I will tell you plainly that, if the course of events had driven Palmerston to resign, I would have resigned with him, though I had stood alone. Look at what the late Ministers of Louis Philippe have avowed with respect to the Balearic Isles. Were such designs ever proclaimed before, except in a crew of pirates, or a den of robbers? Look at Barrot's speeches about England. Is it for the sake of such friendships as this that our country is to abdicate her rank, and sink into a dependency? I like war quite as little as Sir William Molesworth or Mr. Fonblanque. It is foolish and wicked to bellow for war, merely for war's sake, like the rump of the Mountain at Paris. I would never make offensive war. I would never offer to any other power a provocation which might be a fair ground for war. But I never would abstain from doing what I had clear right to do, because a neighbour chooses to threaten me with an unjust war; first, because I believe that such a policy would, in the end, inevitably produce war; and secondly because I think war, though a very great evil, by no means so great an evil as subjugation and national humiliation.

In the present case, I think the course taken by the Government unexceptionable. If Guizot prevails, that is to say, if reason, justice, and public law prevail,—we shall have no war.

If the writers of the National, and the singers of the Marseillaise prevail, we can have no peace. At whatever cost, at whatever risk, these banditti must be put down; or they will put down all commerce, civilization, order, and the independence of nations.

Of course what I write to you is confidential; not that I should hesitate to proclaim the substance of what I have said on the hustings, or in the House of Commons; but because I do not measure my words in pouring myself out to a friend. But I have run on too long, and should have done better to have given the last half-hour to Wycherley.

Ever yours,

T. B. MACAULAY.

CCCXXIX.

Mr. Macvey Napier, in his capacity of Editor of the 'Edinburgh Review,' had unintentionally wounded Leigh Hunt's feelings by requesting him to contribute a 'gentlemanlike ' article. The result of the following mediatory letter was a generous and amiable communication from Napier to Leigh Hunt which more than satisfied him.

Thomas Babington Macaulay to Macvey Napier.

Albany, London: October 30, 1841.

Dear Napier,—I have received your letter and am truly glad you are satisfied with the effect of my article. As to the preliminary part of the matter, I am satisfied, and more than satisfied. Indeed, as you well know, money has never been my chief object in writing. It was not so even when I was poor; and at present I consider myself as one of the richest men of my acquaintance; for I can well afford to spend a thousand a year, and I can enjoy every comfort on eight hundred. I own, however, that your supply comes agreeably enough to assist me in furnishing my rooms, which I have made, unless I am mistaken, into a very pleasant student's cell. And now a few words about Leigh Hunt. He wrote to me yesterday in great distress, and enclosed a letter which he had received from you, and which had much agitated him. In truth, he misunderstood you; and you had used an expression which was open to some misconstruction.

You told him that you should be glad to have a "gentlemanlike" article from him, and Hunt took this for a reflection on his birth. He implored me to tell him candidly whether he had given you any offence, and to advise him as to his course. I replied that he had utterly misunderstood you; that I was sure you meant merely a literary criticism; that your taste in composition was more severe than his, more indeed than mine; that you were less tolerant than myself of little mannerisms springing from peculiarities of temper and training; that his style seemed to you too colloquial; that I myself thought he was in danger of excess in that direction; and that, when you received a letter from him promising a very "chatty" article, I was not surprised that you should caution him against his besetting sin. I said that I was

sure that you wished him well, and would be glad of his assistance; but that he could not expect a person in your situation to pick his words very nicely; that you had during many years superintended great literary undertakings; that you had been under the necessity of collecting contributions from great numbers of writers, and that you were responsible to the public for the whole. Your credit was so deeply concerned that you must be allowed to speak plainly. I knew that you had spoken to men of the first consideration quite as plainly as to him. I knew that you had refused to insert passages written by so great a man as Lord Brougham. I knew that you had not scrupled to hack and hew articles on foreign politics which had been concocted in the Hotels of ambassadors, and had received the imprimatur of Secretaries of State. I said that, therefore, he must, as a man of sense, suffer you to tell him what you might think, whether rightly or wrongly, to be the faults of his style. As to the sense which he had put on one or two of your expressions, I took it on myself, as your friend, to affirm that he had mistaken their meaning, and that you would never have used those words if you had foreseen that they would have been so understood. Between ourselves, the word "gentlemanlike" was used in rather a harsh way. Now I have told you what has passed between him and me; and I leave you to act as you think fit. I am sure that you will act properly and humanely. But I must add that I think you are too hard on his article. As to the Vicar of Wakefield,' the correction must be deferred, I think, till the appearance of the next number. I am utterly unable to conceive how I can have committed such a blunder, and failed to notice it in the proofs.

Ever yours,

T. B. MACAULAY.

Alluding to an unfortunate mistake in a recent article in the 'Edinburgh Review,' which arose from the substitution of the Vicar of Wakefield' for 'History of Greece,' thereby pronouncing the former work to be a bad one.